Flavours
by Her Name Is Erika
Summary: Michael Barrett ponders about the different flavours of lip gloss he's encountered.


**A/N: I'm writing The Prince & The Princess, but I also scribbled down the beginning of my Michael-centric oneshot. Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I own Zoey 101, the sky is green and the clouds are made me cotton candy. **

* * *

**Karen Franklin: raspberry cotton candy**

The first actual relationship he's in ends and starts in the summer of 2005.

Her raven hair is long and her brown eyes are dark but they sparkle. Her lips gleam with lip gloss of a sweet flavor, something that has a close relation to raspberries. Like a concentrated form of cotton candy, and raspberry that induce a monstrous headache after entrapped in a sugar rush.

She's cute and sure, she provides good company, but Karen causes Michael the biggest of headaches.

"Are you sure you don't want anything for your birthday?"

Karen nods, brushing the raven hair out of her eyes, "Yeah, I'm sure. You really don't have to buy me a gift. It's no trouble."

He has to question again, because his headache won't dissipate, meaning he's still confused, and decides to rely that to her, face showing uncertainty.

"You're positive?"

"Yes, Michael. I'm _positive_," she assures, bright smile included.

"Okay," he concedes, with a shrug. Lips gleaming from that sugary-sweet lip gloss, she presses her lips to his and everything seems to be okay even if he's sure the female mind is a place he silently vows to never fully venture into. He can taste that raspberry lip gloss so strongly.

Karen birthday comes.

Michael's gift never appears.

Three days of crying makes Karen Franklin take her sugary-sweet, raspberry flavoured, haze-of-confusion inducing lip gloss all the way to Wisconsin. Maybe the cheese and other dairy products will help her make up her mind.

Michael concludes that the female mind – well, Karen's mind – is a complex mess.

* * *

**Vanessa Adams: vanilla shimmer**

Michael hates vanilla.

Okay, okay. Hate is too strong of a word to use, but the vanilla flavour and anything pertaining to it would most definitely be in the flumpy category. As sweet as vanilla is, it just fades away after a while. This may just be in his mind, but it feels like the ice-cream melts a lot faster and the after taste is sort of strange-tasting on his tongue. Vanessa is sweet, and she is fine. Even Logan claims so, and if Logan says a girl is good-looking, then that's the only time he will follow Logan's expertise.

The hula skirt, bikini top, and flashing light is pretty worth it at the time, because he gets the girl he wants without his gag reflexes going all crazy on him. He doesn't throw up anymore. On the first initial date, they indeed go to Sushi Rox, split a sorbet, drink soda and just talk.

On the third date, they're watching a movie and Vanessa's hand unknowingly slips into his. They lock eyes, his eyes dart down those ready and available lips, sparkling with lip gloss, vanilla flavoured: sweet, but not long-lasting.

He kisses her on the cheek, because he's not ready. Maybe vanilla will leave a sweeter and more indulgent aftertaste when he waits. Maybe. Just maybe.

On the sixth date, Vanessa becomes Michael's girlfriend.

On the tenth date, Michael finally kisses her goodnight. He can taste the sweetness of the vanilla, and just like that, it's over. Nothing really monumental, and earth-shattering.

Just like vanilla, everything's hyped up, only to fade away into a degree of nothing.

It feels like sort of a waste. At least the debate between straight and ruffled potato chips provides him with a good laugh.

"Okay, I think I'm just going to end it with Vanessa," he says, upon entering his dorm. Chase looks up from absent-mindedly strumming his guitar, no doubt, trying to put a tune together. Logan walks in, searching for a shirt to wear.

"Why? Weren't you two good?"

"Yeah," Michael answers, Blix in hand. "We were good, but I kissed her goodnight and it felt like flat soda. No fizz."

"So?" Logan questions, pulling the shirt over his head. "She's hot. You kiss and move on."

"See, this is why I filter out everything you say," Chase replies, disapproval on his features. Turning an understanding look to his best friend, he stops strumming, and lightly shrugs. "Look, man. Just do what you have to do. If it calls for breaking up with Vanessa, then that's it."

"Thanks," Michael says, gratefully, slapping his best friend's hand, and touching knuckles the way guys do. "I'm off to see Vanessa right now."

"And since you messed up, I'm taking a whack at her."

"That's low, Logan. Even for _you_."

Michael bites his tongue, and makes a mental note to hide a couple (all) of Logan's mirrors.

He can get rid of the vanilla, and then make it himself feel better with a bag of Lays.

* * *

**Lola Martinez: pina colada medley**

Lola is a blend, a mix, a hybrid.

Just like her pina colada lip gloss – a mix of pineapple and peaches.

He admires her ability to just be herself, and not care. With her child-like nature and previously colourful hair, Michael doesn't know what he feels for the resident actress. Sometimes, Michael is sure he's attracted to her, harbouring romantic feelings and then he's torn again, thinking that he's just act brotherly towards her seeing as he has two sisters back home in Atlanta.

Pina colada is a tangy flavor, one he can appreciate on two different, but close levels.

His mood is dropped a thousand points below when his best friend, since the sixth grade leaves for England. Michael is usually rational, and knows what's up, but no amount of sketches, and makeshift hot tubs can hide how he feels. Walking out to clear his head, the air is crisp and sharp against his skin.

Michael is totally feelin' flumpy right now, but pushing his flumpy feelings aside, he squints just to verify the slender form sitting there on a bench. Chase leaves recently, so Michael doubts anyone will be bubbly and upbeat. It actually looks like someone dies. It feels that way. In some ways, their group has that disintegrating feeling.

Like it's crumbling like a stale cookie Michael spits out after one bite.

Logan just acts nonchalant, but Michael can read people, and knows that Logan's eyes sell him out. He's angry. Quinn preoccupies herself with schoolwork, reading and avoiding Stacy altogether.

Just like Lola's pina colada lip gloss – he's left with the torn feelings, that dangerous cross being angry and being comforting. He's just soft. Like a teddy bear the girls can hug, and in times like these, he most definitely doesn't complain.

Lola's eyes are far away, and Michael eases his way to sit beside her, and calls her name to get her attention.

"Lola?"

"Oh," the slender Latina snaps to attention, before smiling weakly. "Hey Michael."

"You cool?" he questions, before mentally kicking himself. "Obviously, not. Chase is gone, so no. Nothing's cool. Nothing will be more for a while."

Brothers 'till the end. Brother from another mother.

(Bros before hoes – not to imply anything.)

"This sucks. And Quinn's my best friend, but I feel like I can confide in you too," she admits, voice starting to break, eyes welling up with tears. "I have my acting, Logan has his denial and Quinn has her brains to cope, and even pretend this hasn't happened to us. But how do you deal?"

Michael shrugs, offering a slight smile, "Easy. I crack jokes at the things that aren't even funny."

Lola smiles, grabbing his hand, "Well, I need a good laugh. So, I'll laugh with you."

"Thanks," is the only thing he can put together, before everything settles into silence.

Again, he's torn.

It's an emotional tug of war, and when Lola looks at him again, the beginnings of a tear begin and he sees his hand reach up, and wipe the tear away from existence. Before he can retrieve his hand back gently, and just silently comfort her, Michael tastes the tangy pina-colada lip gloss. That blend of pineapple and peach – the line of love and a sense of brotherly obligation that is blurred.

He kisses her back, before he knows it's over, and he blinks.

"Feel anything?" she questions, and he's confused.

"What?"

"I was confused about us too," Lola assures him, as the genuine honest-to-God truth. "So, I thought if we kissed we'd know for sure. If there was a chance, there could be _something_, even though we didn't know it. It worked."

He feels nothing. So, the feelings are merely a crush, a classic case of infatuation and he nods.

(Phew, brotherly feelings.)

"I totally get you, Lola, but it doesn't mean I can't comfort my friend," he replies, with all of the resolve he has left. Opening his arms, literally, and figuratively, Michael lets Lola in, allowing her to release the emotions she holds in on his shoulder, while he rubs her back to soothe her. He doesn't exactly know any main speeches of Shakespeare's by heart.

("I love him too, Michael. But he loves her. I'll deal, though.")

Pina colada is a sweet mix.

However, being everyone's friend, and unspoken secret keeper, is quite the contrary.

But Michael will deal.

* * *

**Lisa Perkins: chocolate caramel **

They make beautiful music together.

Michael hones his singing with the occasional solo in church and the occasional talent show, and then Lisa Perkins enters his life, and when they're up there on stage, it's just the fact that Michael finds The One. The girl that will harmonize with him – musical and on a physical, emotional level. Lisa's musicality just enchants him. Her eyes sparkle when she's most happy, and Michael can spot her bright, radiant smile from miles away.

He finds himself, spending so much time with Lisa in the quite large music room that the teacher, Mrs. Ross, nearly chokes up in tears from the beautiful sounds the couple produce. Her years of teaching the arts are not in vain this time. On one specific occasion, the windows are left open, that beautiful wondrous meshing of their voices – her singing the melody, while Michael sings the harmony floods out of the music room, carried by the wind to PCA's campus, putting the school at a temporary standstill.

Michael can only watch her slender fingers slide over the ivory keys, making various chords to piece together another.

It's the stunning beauty with the infectious personality, and musicality pulling him again.

"Okay, so we're going to go from a G Major to an F7 Major chord and then…" Lisa trails off, when Michael gently pulls her hand away from the piano keys only to finds them gently settled in Michael's hands. She laughs, lightly. "Michael, what's up?"

Lisa's got Michael love stoned – and he _knows_ that she knows.

"Just wanted to tell you that you'll always be my Lil' Lisa," he gives her a grin, and Lisa has the tinges of pink gracing her cheeks. "You're special to me, and I love you."

"Aw, Michael…" she reaches up, placing one hand on his cheek, returning his loving gaze. "I love you too."

Their lips meet in a kiss, and Michael tastes the genuine, real, pure sweetness of the chocolate caramel lips, Lisa sweeps on her lips at a time prior.

It's a kind of sweet that steals his heart away, and makes him fall for her harder, and faster.

(But Lisa can most definitely keep it forever, as long as they continue make beautiful music together.)

* * *

**A/N: And here's the conclusion of Flavours. I just put out the longest Quogan oneshot EVER called The Prince & The Princess, so please give that a read too. Seriously, I gave up sleep for that, as I did for this one. Not too much is done with Michael, and I just had to do it because he rules! Duh. Please excuse any errors you may find with this, as it is 4 am. Notice a pattern here? What? You mean not everyone gives up precious sleep for fanfiction? Oh, well. Review with more than just "cute" or "awesome" and the ever popular "update." It's not fulfilling for me anymore. You'll notice I cleaned up my profile, storing all of my current ideas in the sometimes recesses of my mind. I'm a little paranoid when it comes to plagiarism, so yeah. Seriously, give TPATP love if you haven't. I busted my ass extra hard on that. But send out the Michael/Lisa love too. You know you want to. **

**I'm planning to write some side projects outside of Zoey 101, like somewhere in the Life With Derek section, and The Latest Buzz. I'm trying to expand. I have the darkest Seddie planned. I wrote part of it, and then stopped because the writer in me wants to say it was like a "literary vampire" which it was. It's inspired by the song Decode by Paramore. Listen. This dark has musically possessed me into listening it to it with no self will or control. **

**See, I'm not this dark-minded when I sleep. So, I shall crash now, and wake up as the normal Erika you love (I hope…), and not this thought-spewing, scrambled sort of dark one. Split personality, yes?**

**Sleep is good. It'll stop my babbling.**

**-Erika**


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